Ispo gave a special life achievement award last Tuesday night to Willy Bogner, whose company crossed the €200 million threshold last year in terms of direct and licensees' sales, reaching a level of €213 million, up from €194 million in 2010. Half of the turnover was generated outside Germany and one-third of the total consisted of Bogner and Fire & Ice activewear. The German entrepreneur, who celebrated his 70th birthday last week with his wife, Sonia, and a close circle of friends in St. Moritz, got a pair of skis from 1942 as a birthday present at Ispo's gala dinner last night from Klaus Dittrich, president of Messe München. Hubert Burda, the German publisher, gave a moving speech where he praised Bogner as an artist and an entrepreneur who created a wonderful combination of sport and fashion with music and filmmaking. A movie on the history of Bogner showed how his father, a ski champion in the 1936 Olympics, founded the family company with his wife 80 years ago, introducing the first sexy elastic ski pants.

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